


Achilles Reimagined

by theroaringseas



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: M/M, first person and third person lol sry, im just horrified by this now, prose poetry, spare me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 17:17:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11406963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroaringseas/pseuds/theroaringseas
Summary: This is an anthology collection of my obsessive Patrochilles phase. There's some poetry, prose poetry, and prose. I don't really know how to describe this. It's the antics of a hopeless romantic teenager. So yeah, I apologize in advance.





	Achilles Reimagined

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even kidding when I say this: I hate this. I wrote it a year ago in the summer of 2016. Don't know what the fuck to do with it. Frankly, I'm horrified by it. I'm also bitter about wasting so much time fawning over Achilles. Did you click to go back yet? I'll explain more at the end. The title is a misnomer in that the narrative switches back and forth between Achilles and Patroclus' point of view.

I.

At times where I thought of him, I thought of him: at the beach with sand sticking to skin of his feet; in the ocean when drowning wasn't an option and water still found a way to make him float; in the mountains, hearing his voice echoing in song and wind; at the compass of the earth where the green grass littered into his hair and I kissed him frighteningly like there was no tomorrow waiting for him.

II.

_I saw him in mind's eye._

_My throat won't be the same; my heart won't ache the same,_

_it’ll carry the same beat though but deeper,_

_heavier than the war drums announcing_

_his arrival and your departure._

 III.

I want touch the palms of your hands and whisper sweet nothings in your ear. I want us to forget the raging war outside these doors and sleep in and out all night, all morning. I want to say good riddance to all the chaos we’ve committed and kiss you by the shore. But that’s impossible, isn't it? Because I am mortal and you are dead.

IV.

Achilles gazed up at the night sky; the stars cluttered together knit close and infinite and somehow, this time, he couldn’t make out the constellations anymore; counting them would have been in vain but Patroclus still tried anyways with outstretched hand ascending towards the heavens.

“There’s too many,” Achilles told him; too many questions to answers even the gods didn’t have. He sighed heavily and let his body ease and relax, thrumming his hands on the sandy ground, and turning his grass-sewn golden head towards Patroclus who laid by his side unafraid. The crickets began their symphony along with the waves that crashed onto the shore and a silver beach beetle made its way under a dry log.  He knew one thing for sure though.

“I don’t want to die young,” Achilles croaked. It was a whisper but came out too rasping loud for his own eardrums. Patroclus looked at him with his eyes dilating ever so slightly, like he never heard Achilles let down those walls that called for his ruin. The confession weighing each and every word down like an anchor. It made him almost human.

“You won’t,” Patroclus assured him. He shifted a bit so that they stood close. Usually it was the other way around, so uncharacteristic for a god of vanity. “I can’t imagine it if I’m honest.”

“It’s going to happen,” Achilles told him, “It’s what the Fates had planned since I was born.” Patroclus’ eyebrows furrowed inward and his eyes stared into his like he had just accused him of murder.

“Well. Then, fuck the Fates and change your name.” He advised with such a wholesome gravity that Achilles had to scoff. With him, it seemed, everything augured dissolved into myth. “We could run for the mountains. He wouldn’t find you.”

“Prince of Pythia? Really? From Agamemnon? Ha- that’s mad. They’ll take me for a coward. And I am not afraid of the King of Argos, I’m just afraid of-”

“Thanatos.”

Achilles looked down, eyes drifting away from the other half of his soul. He breathes a word deeply:

“Yes.”

V.

There’s only one place where my mind is not like a stampede of bulls. It’s on the beach, sand-soaked skin to skin and salty breaths; embraces make me feel weird but I find myself craving for more. Just like how kissing boys isn’t really what my mom likes to see, but it’s better than the alternative where I’m in a bloodbath with a guy who can summon lightning and play murder with his eyes. It’s heady, isn’t it? I think so too when I see his lips drivel on and on about stupid things like the tear in his tunic and how the goddess of the earth said he’d be better off if he stayed in Pythia. But he won’t. He knows it like I know it because he’s the only one on this fucking planet who can humor me from the rage and the thunder. If he doesn’t follow me into war, you can expect a carnage even I can’t control, and that’s how I can make sure he stays with me always.

VI.

Oh yes, I am probably mad. Mad enough to cling onto this earth as the gods strike against it. Fuck Odysseus, fuck Diomedes, and to hell with Agamemnon, I’m done playing this game. They think it’s funny: to plunge me into never ending wars until mother cries out and my screams won’t revert to the petal part that used to form around our lips. We are one soul I selfishly took him along with me and never did I once think of the possibility of his death, only mine. Sometimes I imagine we live on a peasant farm with soot stuck on our feet and I think I wouldn’t mind if his corpse wasn’t rotting in front of me. Enough, enough. There is enough grief to go around. It is the end when I learn that we are not one soul. We're just divided between the planes of mortality.

VII.

I see him from afar, closed off from the earth, soaring god heights. He is weeping hurricanes. Achilles, Achilles, what is wrong, I ask him. You have wealth, strength, women, and status. You have a thousand more golden towns to sac. He is weeping floods and storms. You have ichor in your veins and a shreds of godly attention. Never had I seen a man so lost in his skin.

VIII.

_Do you remember the first time I told you I feared death?_

_I was 12, you were 10, and we were at Pharaoh's dusk._

_A translucent beetle freaked you out & I knew then that talking was a mistake._

_Do you remember the first time I showed you my poetry?_

_Songs of betrayals, odes to lost princesses, omens to a tragic martyr._

_“Tell me more, tell me more,” my muse, you must sing to me first._

_Do you remember the small sea turtles by the shore?_

_Wading through broken glass & smooth rainbow rocks._

_The sea likes to wash memories of loss & voices of the forgotten._

_They whisper, I do, I do._

_Do you remember the day I left for ten years to Troy?_

_I followed you into an abyss & came back alive & you,_

_You left me at the front of a plague, a disgusting, guttural sob wrenching from my chest._

_Do you remember the afternoon we reunited on the porch?_

_You’ve grown broad shoulders, a scar on your bottom lip, a new name._

_Do you remember the last time we met some 2866 years ago?_

_Homer says many a mountain range lies between us._

 IX.

Keep gnawing in the crook of my neck and I’ll snap back at you. Keep it up with your humor and your profanity and your love. The universe wants us to be together; it wants us to make our bodies move as one. So, trust your soul and I’ll take reigns. I’ve never met a more fiery opponent and the second you leave, the next time I see you, I will slash all the tires in your car and thrash you into the dust with blood blossoming on your lip. Lanterns only light up when you’re not here and candles don’t make a difference. Spill that oil on my skin, and take me to the underworld. Kiss me like this our last time together, and fuck me until I don’t think about visions of the apocalypse. I’m desperate, you’re desperate, and we’re both afraid we’re dying tomorrow without names. ‘I love you’s’ are empty when it’s the only thing I know in my core and somehow after all the strife, I still like waking up with your blood-soaked, wrathful, blinding, godly self above me, ruffling my hair so. God, Achilles, you could’ve told me that this is what a life with you would lead to. You could’ve told me you were afraid to die alone. It wouldn’t have changed my mind anyways.

X.

_I killed, I killed, I killed until blood was staining my hands and I still didn't know what to do._

XI.

He is the true, tragic denizen of an oil painting, the stifling grand stature of a legendary warrior, the ever-consuming madness of torn soul. But I can only speak words as the weigh on a greater scale. And maybe someday he'll recognize the truth too. My grave, as his feet strikes the earth, my name, as he plants a dew-dropped flower, “in the memory of my most beloved” my grave says to him in my name. And he listens.

**Author's Note:**

> So like, while this does embarrass me profoundly. It did help me grow as a writer and I'm glad I learned sooner than later. I'm glad I saw the errors in my poetry. Especially since I was starting out. And I'm not so lovesick and a hopeless romantic about Achilles anymore. I am for others// but I've learned on how to rein in on that. I'm publishing it now because it's been haunting my docs & I like recording my progress. I feel compelled to explain this mess. Anyways reviews are always appreciated.


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